1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular, to an automated learning system for improving graphical user interfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
Graphical user interfaces, or “GUIs” as they are often designated, are interface systems, including devices, by which a user interacts with a system, system components, and/or system applications. One of the many advantages of such GUIs is that they allow a user to create and edit documents and structures in a graphical manner by selecting and manipulating graphical display elements, such as icons, usually with a pointing device, such as a mouse. The Apple Macintosh user interface, Microsoft Windows operating environment, and UNIX X-Windows are common and very popular examples of GUIs, illustrating the fact that the advantages of GUIs over conventional text-based user interfaces are widely recognized.
Frequently, users interact with various graphical user interfaces and may type large amounts of information into the input screens. While a user may navigate through the various input screens successfully, there are many situations wherein the user is prevented from moving through the screens due to an error, wherein the error is caused by the input of invalid or illegal values into the screen. For instance, consider the example of a web page containing a service registration form which is presented to a user. The registration form may contain a “username” field which is to be filled in by the user. In this example, the “username” field in the service registration form is a text box. When the user enters text into the “username” text box, the application behind the web page expects the input value to be a valid email address. If the user enters a username other than an expected email address, the system notifies the user of the error. The user is required to correct the error, and then re-submit the form with a proper username entry in order to be able to successfully navigate through the screens. Although the error encountered by the user may be a common error across a wide range of users, conventional graphical user interface applications, as described in the example above, do not provide for using these errors as learning tools to control and improve graphical user interfaces controls.